


To be Gifted

by rinberries (Detective_Rin)



Series: Rin's Angst-Vents [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Gifted Kid Burnout, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Second Person, but only if you choose to interpret it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:01:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27767155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Detective_Rin/pseuds/rinberries
Summary: You don't know when it all started going wrong. Only that it did, and there's no turning back now.
Series: Rin's Angst-Vents [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090616
Kudos: 2





	To be Gifted

**Author's Note:**

> This is very much a vent fic that I only wrote to deal with gifted kid burn out, it's raw/very much unbeta'd so don't expect too much.

It feels good, at first. Like a fantasy. There's no reason for it not to be; After all, you're smart, smarter than most of the other kids, you're going to go places, everyone says so.  
  
Life is easy, and fun, and the rush of meeting the high expectations bestowed upon you is gratifying. The adults treat you like royalty. Never lifting a finger yet understanding it all; School is a breeze, every day feels like you're flying. It all feels too good to be true, and it should be, but it isn't, and the knowledge of it all is magnificent.  
  
Colour floods your life and success fuels your veins. Positivity mirrors oxygen in familiarity. Life is perfect, a dream even, and surely it'll be like this forever, you know it will. They all say it will.  
  
When did it turn into a lie?

\--

You enter high school, thinking it will continue on as it always has. Mostly, it does with a few hiccups; You force yourself to ignore those. Everything is fine.  
  
One day it hits you full force. You don't understand this at all, despite multiple frantic attempts to begin to absorb any of it.  
  
Your teacher sits innocently at the front of the room, observing as your class works in peace and harmony. The room is tranquil and still; to you it feels stiff and painful. A lump rises in the back of your throat, and your hand twitches with the urge to claw at it until it goes away.   
  
Out of the blue, your brain reminds you that _hey, they always say they're there to help. Why not give it a try?_ You can't, and you know it. This is all a foreign feeling, you've never even had to consider asking for help, could always do everything yourself. Now, met with the desperate need for help, you don't know how to ask. You can't.  
  
So you don't. Instead, you sit and stare at the paper in silence, wondering why suddenly, your brain won't work as well as it used to.  
  
Where did it all go wrong?

  
You tell yourself this won't happen again. It does.

\--

Halfway through high school, you're used to it, but still can't bring yourself to ask for a helping hand. Why? You ask yourself one day. Your brain responds instantly, _pride. Your last coping mechanism._ Despite all this, you can still understand your brain's hidden warning. Destroy this and it all crumbles down. Don't ruin this.  
  
You decide that asking for help isn't for you, anyway. It never has been.

\--

At some point, you find yourself making more friends, and two of them bring along bitterness at what could've been. Teachers worship them, call each of them a genius in their own right. You stand aside, reduced to plain _average_ as you watch them soar. Just like you used to, before your wings snapped and you hit the ground mercilessly with no guide as to how to proceed.  
  
However, it isn't all bad. There is an upside to falling early, you discover, and it rests deep within the two of them, untamed and sour to experience. Arrogance. Both of them believe that the world rests upon their fingertips. It doesn't. You know it doesn't, and for once are thankful for your fall from grace. _Look what could have happened to you,_ your thoughts whisper, and you find yourself silently agreeing, wanting nothing more than to drag them down to earth as you had been, to tell them the horrors of it all.  
  
You hold your tongue. Part of you can't help but feel pity for them, having built up so much pride, more than you ever did, while lacking the knowledge that it will one day all come crashing down. Your wings can't hold you forever.  
  
Maybe they know that, have witnessed what will happen and are ignoring it in order to cope, as you once did. You suggest vaguely that life may not always be this way for them. They disagree.  
  
You tried to warn them, at least. You find solace in that.

\--

Sometimes you think back to how it all once was. Getting lost in the past is freeing, and allows you to set aside your worries for a little while.  
  
Until you remember that it was never all sunshine and rainbows, not even then.  
  
Being more aware than the other children was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, as it allowed you to advance further than they ever did. A curse, as it opened your eyes to how bad people really were. How they fought and lied and manipulated one another.  
  
It stirred up an internal reaction within you, and you wanted no more than to reach out and put a stop to it all. No matter how hard it was to endure it every day, you had no other choice. You were merely a child, and you knew that made your opinion worthless in the eyes of the adults. Life was unfair like that.  
  
Forcefully, you push those memories away. _Another time,_ you tell yourself, _that's for another time._ Begrudgingly, mood slightly soured, you return to pretending it was all okay at some point.  
  
On the surface, life was perfect, happy and successful and carefree.  
Things are never as they seem.

\--

One day, in class, you get lost in your thoughts. Your focus only wanders for a minute. It is enough.  
  
Realisation strikes as you struggle to memorise several things at once, and all of their meanings. It dawns on you how fucked up the system really is. You feel, ever so slightly, like you're choking. Half of these kids, the ones you've known for four years, aren't going to make it. They're young, and can't cope, and despite some unpleasantries they're still children, still growing, they're-  
  
\- going to crash and burn, and there's nothing you can do about it.  
  
_You'll end up just like them if you don't focus,_ a voice taunts you. _Shut up_ is your only response. What else can you say?  
  
You tune back in to the lesson, pretending nothing is wrong. _Stop thinking about it._  
You do.

\--

Your parents never notice. Why would they? You can't talk to them. It's awkward, and they have no reason to try anyway. In their eyes, there isn't anything to talk about. Grades-wise, you're doing fine. No reason for concern, so they can't think of anything to worry about.  
  
You smile bitterly at the thought that they've never had to feel like this and never will. Grimly, you think, _they'll never understand,_ and it isn't as jarring as it should be.  
  
Comfort is found in that. It's a hard thing to come by, these days, so you bask in it for a little while. Sudden realisations aren't as sudden anymore, now you're familiar enough with them to recognise the sensation of them gradually building up. A consistency; you cling to it. Weirdly enough, it helps make life seem more okay.  
  
It may be luring you, slowly, into a false sense of security. Is it? You aren't sure.  
  
You decide to stop thinking about it. You do that a lot, these days.

\--

One day, it all became a nightmare, but you've learned to cope. Adjusting was hard, but you've made it. Roughly. You push down the memories of late-night breakdowns and the numbness that fills your veins that say otherwise.  
  
It's all going to be fine, you tell yourself, because it could be so much worse. Your grades are still good. You can stay at this level and it'll all be okay.  
  
The truth hurts. You ignore it and the knowledge that it will do more harm than good, in the long run. That's a future-you problem.  
  
Future-you is going to regret this. It only slightly pains you to think that it's merely one more thing to add to the list.  
  
To live in the past is to suffer, it truly is.

\--

Perhaps one night you sit on your bedroom windowsill with the breeze tickling the hairs on your arms. Perhaps it is late, and the moon is beautiful in its brightness, hanging in the sky alongside millions of shining stars. Perhaps you wish upon those stars, just once, that life could be the dream you so liked to pretend it used to be. Perhaps you wonder, in another galaxy, if things could be as beautiful as the night sky. Perhaps life could be golden. 

Golden like the student you once were, with your strong wings and even stronger capabilities. Not here, you've long since discredited that, but maybe in another time. Never here, though. _Never_ _here._  
  
Such was it,

to be gifted.


End file.
